Reducing the risk of consenting for Offshore Wind energy

Emilie Reeve
Programme Manager, Offshore Renewable Joint Industry Programme, Carbon Trust, 4th Floor Dorset House, 27-45 Stamford Street, London, SE1 9NT

T: 020 7832 4511
E: emilie.reeve@carbontrust.com
W: www.carbontrust.com/ORJIP

Managed by the Carbon Trust, the Offshore Renewables Joint Industry Programme (ORJIP) is a joint industry programme between, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, Marine Scotland, The Crown Estate and 16 offshore wind developers with an interest in the UK offshore wind market (Centrica, DONG Energy, EDF, EDPR, Eneco, E.ON, Fluor, Mainstream Renewable Power, Repsol, RWE Innogy, ScottishPower Renewables, Siemens, SSE Renewables, Statkraft, Statoil and Vattenfall).

Born out of a requirement from UK ministers for the industry to address the consenting challenges facing the offshore wind industry, ORJIP is a collaborative R&D programme aimed at undertaking strategic research to reduce the consenting risk for offshore wind projects and help deliver the Government’s commitment to the 2020 renewable energy targets.

Through consultation with the offshore wind industry, public bodies and Statutory Nature Conservation Bodies (SNCBs) a number of key research projects have been identified as critical to de-risking the consenting process. These projects focus on strategic data collection and technology research to develop solutions on behalf of offshore wind developers to address two key consenting risks:
• Birds – uncertainty on bird fatalities due to collision, and potential population displacement
• Marine Mammals – uncertainty on the potential injury from high levels of underwater noise due to construction, and potential population displacement

The four priority projects identified in 2012 by industry and regulators for scoping are:

  • Project 1: Bird collision risk and avoidance rate monitoring
  • Project 2: Evidence gathering for Population Consequences of Acoustic Disturbance (PCAD) model to predict impacts on marine mammals from underwater noise.
  • Project 3: Underwater noise mitigation technologies for piled foundations in deeper water.
  • Project 4: Use of deterrent devices and improvements to standard mitigation during piling

As the offshore wind industry and consenting process continues to evolve so too do the challenges faced by the offshore wind developers to ensure that their offshore wind site has mitigated as much as possible the environmental impact. The ORJIP consortium continues to review the current and future consenting challenges faced by the offshore wind industry and aims to conduct the necessary research and technology development to address these challenges and reduce the risk to consenting.

See:

www.carbontrust.com/ORJIP for more information on the ORJIP programme

www.carbontrust.com/media/394474/orjip-acoustic-deterrent-devices-phase-1-report-xodus.pdf
for the phase 1 market review report on Acoustic Deterrent Devices